Does 9:16 cost less than 16:9 for a 30 s Seedance 2.5 clip?

No: 9:16 and 16:9 cost the same on Seedance 2.5 and Wan 3.0 at every resolution. Only 1:1 at 480p is cheaper, by 36 cents on 30 s.

5 min readSume
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No. A vertical 9:16 clip costs exactly the same as a 16:9 clip on Seedance 2.5 at 480p, 720p and 1080p, and Wan 3.0 has one price per resolution for every aspect ratio (as of 2026-10-08). The only cheaper shape in the grid is 1:1 at 480p.

Seedance 2.5 by aspect ratio

The grid prices a 30 s clip at three aspect ratios. Vertical and landscape are identical in every row.

Seedance 2.5, 30 s billable price by aspect ratio (as of 2026-10-08)
Resolution16:99:161:1
480p$8.07$8.07$7.71
720p$17.34$17.34$17.34
1080p$42.65$42.65$42.65

The 1:1 exception

At 480p a square clip is $7.71 and a 16:9 or 9:16 clip is $8.07, a difference of 36 cents. At 720p and 1080p the square price equals the others. A difference this small should not drive the format; pick the aspect ratio for where the video will play.

Sume does not publish the pixel arithmetic behind that 480p difference in the docs pages cited here, so do not rely on it beyond the grid values.

Wan 3.0 and the other Seedance rows

Wan 3.0 is billed per second and has no aspect dimension: 30 s is $1.88, $3.75 and $7.50 at 480p, 720p and 1080p whatever the shape. Seedance 2.0, Fast and Mini follow the Seedance pattern, with 1:1 cheaper only at 480p (for example, Seedance 2.0 at 15 s costs $2.64 for 16:9 and $2.52 for 1:1).

Practical rule: choose 9:16 for a phone-first placement without worrying about price, and compare resolutions instead. A 720p vertical clip is 2.15 times a 480p one; that gap is bigger than any aspect effect.

Check before a batch

Use the model's catalog entry for the aspect ratios it accepts. Seedance 2.5 lists auto, adaptive, 21:9, 16:9, 4:3, 1:1, 3:4 and 9:16. The grid in this post covers three of them; the others are not priced here, so request one test job before assuming they match.

What to test instead

Because the shape is free, spend your test budget on resolution and duration. A 10 s vertical test at 720p costs $5.78 on Seedance 2.5 and $1.25 on Wan 3.0.

If you need 21:9, note that Seedance 2.5 lists it while Wan 3.0 does not. The grid in this post prices 16:9, 9:16 and 1:1 only, so budget 21:9 as an unpriced case until you run one job and read the receipt.

Check the number yourself

To confirm the figure behind this post, read the seedance-2.5 entry from GET /v1/video-router/models and check that 30 s and 480p are inside its duration_seconds and resolutions. The grid price for that cell is 807 cents ($8.07). It is the provider list price times 1.25, rounded up to the next cent for the job, as of 2026-10-08.

Use an Idempotency-Key on every create call so a retry cannot start a second paid job, then poll the job until it is complete and download the file from the result. Media inputs for Timeline or for references must be hosted files, so import them first.

None of the prices here say anything about picture quality, motion or how well a model follows a prompt. Prices can change when a provider changes its list, which is why every table carries a date. Re-read the catalog before you commit a large batch, and run one test job at the exact setting you plan to use.

Sources

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Written by Sume